Published 4:00 am, Sunday, September 2, 2001

2001-09-02 04:00:00 PDT Durban, South Africa -- A variety of African leaders demanded apologies, and in some cases financial reparations, yesterday from Western countries that benefited from the enslavement of tens of millions of Africans over three centuries and the colonization of African countries.

Speaking at the U.N. World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination,

Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the leaders of a half-dozen countries eloquently described the devastating impact of slavery on Africa.

But they sent mixed messages on how far its Western beneficiaries should go to make amends.

"Reparations need to be made in the name of Africa and of those millions of our ancestors who were brutally ripped from their homes and shipped to the New World," said President Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo. He urged the conference to adopt a plan that considered the cancellation of African debt to Western-based international creditors.

President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria said slavery and colonization led to the "poverty, underdevelopment and marginalization" that still plague much of Africa. But he argued that although apologies are due from countries that "practiced and benefited from slavery," demanding financial compensation could "further hurt the dignity of Africa" and exacerbate international tensions.

The issue of reparations for slavery is one of the most contentious at this weeklong conference, which opened Friday. Western countries and corporations fear being subjected to lawsuits from descendants or representatives of the estimated 11 million Africans who were shipped into slavery in North and South America. This concern is one reason the Bush administration decided not to send a high-level delegation to the conference.

A number of diplomats and other observers said reparations -- along with the controversial language in a draft declaration equating Zionism with racism -- could seriously undermine the likelihood that the conference will succeed in producing a plan of action against racism to which all participants can agree.

In an effort to defuse the Zionism issue, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan shuttled between closed-door meetings with U.S. and Arab officials yesterday in an effort to break the impasse. The Bush administration has objected to the proposed declaration and other conference documents that describe Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza as "a new kind of apartheid."

"Lots of behind-the-scenes work is taking place," Annan said at a news conference yesterday afternoon. "Quite a lot of effort is being made. All is not lost."

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat had raised and dashed hopes here by first suggesting that Palestinians would compromise, and then unexpectedly withdrawing the overture. Jesse Jackson, the American civil rights leader, had urged Arafat to move away from the language, which he said was diverting attention from the intolerance practiced around the world.

In his speech, Arafat sharply criticized Israel. He did not mention the word Zionism -- the religious and philosophical underpinning of the movement that founded Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. But while he did not condemn Israel as a racist state, he did say the Israeli occupation "embodies racial discrimination in its ugliest forms."

Yesterday's formal session was dedicated to the topics of racism, slavery and reparations.

Germany, which briefly controlled modern-day Tanzania, Namibia and Togo before World War I, did offer an apology yesterday to countries that were victims of slavery and colonial exploitation. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said a recognition of guilt was the way to restore to the victims and their descendants "the dignity of which they were robbed."

"I should therefore like to do that here and now on behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany," he said in a speech.

As a form of reparation, some African countries consider the cancellation of their debts to international financial institutions to be preferable to apologies, arguing that the huge amounts owed constitute a crushing burden on poverty-stricken nations and that forgiving such debt would be a just recompense for the "debt" of the West to the continent that provided slave labor.

"The external debt burden is unbearable and renders null and void the capacity of our economies to take off," Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi of Mozambique told the conference.

For other African countries, the issue is not so simple and the blame not so easy to place. In Sudan and Mauritania, for example, human rights groups report that slavery of certain ethnic groups is still widely practiced. Most African leaders, in deference to regional sensibilities, are careful not to mention this, but some diplomats said it makes the case for Western reparations much harder to sell.